U. S. VETERINARY MEDICAL ASSOCIATION. 
383 
We young veterinarians, with these vast responsibilities awaiting us, are now 
afforded the first opportunity of socially intermingling wfith many of the oldest 
and most favorably known veterinarians in America, which, with the pleasure 
of meeting again many of those with whom we parted when leaviug college, will 
amply repay us for laying aside for a few days our routine of every day life. 
We are offered for the first time an opportunity to listen to and profit by a 
series of papers representing the best thoughts of the oldest and best known sec¬ 
tion of our profession. ' 
You are more cordially welcome, however, because you now offer us fellow¬ 
ship in your society in a practicable, available, desirable manner, in a way by 
which we hope to be able in the near future to repay you by adding numbers and 
interest to this society. 
College selfishness, foibles, likes and dislikes, have been partly blunted and 
overcome by our State societies, but their influence being limited by the boun¬ 
daries of States, we have come to desire and fully realize the need of a central 
organization about which to rally, a body which we may look upon as repre¬ 
senting our highest ideals of thought and professional conduct. We are grate¬ 
ful to be now offered an opportunity to sit with you in council, to become a part 
of your organization. 
Comprising the numerical half of our profession in the United States, it will 
be conceded that we should constitute a part of a national organization, and we are 
glad that there is every promise that we will to-day, in proportion to our age and 
ability, assume a due proportion of the labor and responsibilities of the United 
States Veterinary Medical Association, and contribute what we can to round out 
its national character, that it may henceforth be viewed, not as a society of the 
Atlantic States, but as one representing the best elements and thought of the 
veterinary profession of the nation. 
This meeting seems to bear with it an unexpressed covenant that your con¬ 
ventions in the future are not to be kept within the former narrow limits, but are 
to be confined only by the national boundary lines. What a change from the past 
when we may journey happily together across the Mississippi, over the Missouri, 
beyond the Rocky Mountains, and convene a far larger assembly than this amid 
the orange groves on the shores of the Pacific. Such’a consummation can scarcely 
be called visionary when we remember the rapid development and growth our 
profession is undergoing, and until this or other Association shall cover this 
entire territory, and include as members a fair proportion of the veterinarians 
of every section, we cannot be said to possess a truly national veterinary society. 
We look upon this meeting as marking the beginning of a revolution in 
your organization—a revolution which it is hoped will bear you and with you 
our whole profession a long step forward. 
To-day you have convened this meeting doubly as far from the Atlantic 
coast as in any previous case ; you will probably vote upon the longest list of • 
applicants for membership ever presented at one time, look upon more new 
faces than ever before, and propose to make an important and sweeping change 
in your manner of admitting members. 
You open your doors rather abruptly to a large company of strangers, 
mostly very young veterinarians, with limited experience in Veterinary Associa- 
